Question

How does rodriguez feel about using race or ethnicity as the main way to determine identity?

Answer 1

Richard Rodriguez expresses mixed feelings about using race or ethnicity as the main way to determine identity. While acknowledging societal pressures to assign simplistic labels based on race or ethnicity, Rodriguez emphasizes the complexity and fluidity of identity influenced by location and other factors.

Step-by-step explanation:

Richard Rodriguez expresses mixed feelings about using race or ethnicity as the main way to determine identity. In his speech, he compares the assimilation strategies pursued by the United States and its neighbors in North America. While he acknowledges that institutions and society often want individuals to categorize themselves into simplistic terms based on race or ethnicity, Rodriguez also highlights the complexity and fluidity of identity, recognizing that it can change depending on location and interplay with other factors such as language and national ancestry.

Answer 2

Rodriguez explored the dilemmas of ethnicity and cultural identity more directly in his second book, Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father. "The America that he described is a new cross-fertilizing culture, a culture of half-breeds, blurred boundaries, and bizarre extremes.